This article is a place holder and needs someone to take it in hand and finish the first draft. If you would like to take this article in hand, leave a reply message below or contact Rock Currier via private message by clicking on the PM button next to my name at the top of the article.

Can you help make this a better article? What good localities have we missed? Can you supply pictures of better specimens than those we show here? Can you give us more and better information about the specimens from these localities? Can you supply better geological or historical information on these localities?

Baryte, PolandBaSO4 Orthorhombic Here will go a good picture of a Baryte from Poland and general remarks about the Baryte from this country. Here are some url's to some of the better Polish Baryte specimens here on Mindat that can be considered for inclusion in the article. These, in most cases are just for temporary use until we can get images of the much better specimens that are almost certainly out there. We should also consider that there are probably localities out there with fine specimens that are not even mentioned on Mindat. Also in some instances there are sometimes pictures on Mindat, of specimens from a locality, but they were so ratty that I did not include them here, but there may also be really good specimens from there that we should talk about in this article.

Here are some notes about Baryte from Poland that may be useful to whoever writes this article.

PolandSilesia, Stanislawow. “…the market for some years now has been sporadically graced with lovely groups of absolutely colorless and transparent plates, set of nicely sometimes by black psilomelane matrix, from Stanislawow…Of the several dealers who had these at Munich, Herbert Becker…offered the best-pellucid and sparkling (and inexpensive) miniatures and thumbnails.”1 A good picture of one of these appears in the Mineralogical Record, Vol. 20, 1989, p. 485.1. Mineralogical Record, Notes from Germany, Thomas Moore, Munich show 1986. Vol. 18, 1987, p.161.

Tarnobrzeg, Machow Mine. These barites are fairly prismatic and occur in divergent sprays with crystals up to about two inches. They remind one a little of the prismatic crystals from South Dakota but with less intense color. “Another locality that has recently enjoyed a renewed outpouring of specimens is the Machow sulfur mine, located near Tarnobrzeg in southeastern Poland. The latest discovery includes some unprecedentedly fine cabinet specimens of golden brown barite, in thickly clustered sparkling spears several centimeters long, with sulfur and white celestite…These had spread to many dealers, but the mother lode was clearly from K. Fritsche…Tann, West Germany…who specializes in Polish and Peruvian minerals; his booth was almost entirely devoted to the Machow material.”1 1 Mineralogical Record, Vol. 20, 1989, Munich show 1988, p 1989.

The most important locality for baryte in Poland is (was in fact) Stanisławów mine, lower Silesia. It was baryte-fluorite mine which produced in 70-80s superb water-clear, extremely lustrous tabular crystals reaching up to almost 10 cm (usual 2-4 cm). Frequently they were placed on black botryoidal psylomelane. Unfortunately very specimens survived until today.

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